SDO on KQED

Is everyone sick of SDO-related posts yet? No? OK good, because here's another video featured on our local PBS/NPR station. Oh, hey, who's that cool guy at around 6:29? Also, I think some of those fancy computer models with green lines going every which way were probably reader and commenter Marc's handiwork. And if that red wall at around 7:00 was transparent, you'd see me diligently working away.


QUEST on KQED Public Media.

Here's the link if you want to view it from the KQED page:
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/journey-into-the-sun

SDO is live

At long last, the Solar Dynamics Observatory is live and the data is publicly available!  After a month or so of on-orbit checkouts and calibrations, the instruments that I worked on (HMI and AIA) are now streaming back tons (well, terrabytes really) of data each day in the form of high-resolution pictures of the sun in different wavelengths and properties.  There's a lot online that can explain it better than I can, so I'll limit myself to just posting a few of the amazing pictures from the press conference event yesterday.  It's exciting to see the pictures finally, and to see that so many other people (around the world) are excited too!  Here's to a good 5 (or 10) years of working telescopes.

SDO Launch!

Belated but still interesting - the Solar Dynamics Observatory, with two instruments I worked on (HMI and AIA), finally launched last week from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  I got to see it in person with the parents and many other Lockheed folks, and despite the one-day delay it was quite an exciting experience!  It worked out great for me, as I got to visit parents, grandparents, and my aunt and uncle, not to mention catch the final night launch of the shuttle ever*.  Here's a couple photos and links to many more:

 

  

  

* - Final shuttle launch in July may well end up being a night launch if it gets delayed more than a couple days.

Links:

Official launch video (Media Player)

Youtube showing cloud ripples from shockwave blasting away sundog

Spaceflight Now page
SDO NASA page

Encapsulation!

SDO is (almost) encapsulated!  Only a few weeks until the Feb. 9 (or more likely Feb. 12-16) launch. Cool picture from yesterday:

HMI (which I worked on mostly) is the one with the two wedge-shaped white radiators visible in the top right of the spacecraft.  EVE is next to it on the left, and the 4 AIA telescopes are opposite them and not visible.

1/26/10 - a couple more pics as SDO is now sitting on the truck waiting for the ride over to the rocket...

SDO has a launch date!

  Old news for those that follow this sort of thing, but it's exciting that the Solar Dynamics Observatory (the satellite that holds the instruments I worked on) has a "definite" launch date now after a year-plus of delays and schedule shuffling!  It's supposed to blast off on Feb. 3rd from Florida.  Hopefully I will get to go see it in person.

There's a neat video of the project with sound bytes from a lot of the NASA people I worked with over the last couple years on the SDO website.  Look at the right under "SDO Engineers Create What Never Was" because I guess that's what we do. (?)  The video direct link is here.  Bonus points for anyone who can spot the 2-3 occurrences of yours truly in the video.  I think I'm pretty obscured in a couple of them (ie @ 0:53 I'm behind the red metal piece).

Here's a cool picture of SDO's ride (an Atlas-V) arriving at the launch pad for vertical integration.  I'm just keeping my fingers crossed the thing doesn't blow up while getting the thing up to 7,000 mph...

Big Brother vs. Carpal Tunnel

Today at work I noticed that some new software was automatically installed on my machine, but I didn't think much of it until this afternoon when I heard a "bloop" over my music and saw a window telling me it was time for an exercise break! The software was this ergonomic monitoring program that prompts you to take a break or do a short exercise if you've been computing too long...

Anyways, I thought the pictures and exercise names they have "tutorials" for were pretty funny. Some of the images really demanded a more accurate name based on the picture:

"Go Speed Racer, Go!"

"Smell my pits!" or "Check me out"

This one is just funny on its own.

Do the "Sock Adjust."

"Pretend you are a corpse"

"Shoot lasers out of your fingers"

"Aghghhh! Where did everyone go?" or "Ostrich hide"

Heh. This one is much funnier to watch the video for. No, there wasn't a "Love Handles" or "Spare Tire" exercise.

"Office Ninja!"

"The Bionic Elbow!"

Got any better name suggestions? Uh-oh, I'm overdue for a mousing break, better stop and do a Speed Racer or two...

NASAdventures

I'm out at Goddard (in Greenbelt, MD) again for work, and I thought I'd post some pictures showing what my days are like. We are out here to replace a couple parts on our telescope, and then re-mount it onto the satellite, which is shown tilted down 90 degrees in the photos below. The big blue table that the spacecraft is mounted on can rotate it between vertical and horizontal, and also rotate it about the long axis so the different instruments can be put on or taken off, worked on at human height, etc. The next three pictures show the SDO spacecraft (in it's current non-final state) before, during, and after rotating.

First, here's the spacecraft with the AIA instrument (that Dustin works on) on the bottom (but you can't see it very well because it's bagged), the EVE instrument at the top right, and HMI (my telescope) on the top left just after we put it back on the satellite after doing our work. It gets lifted on with a crane and some straps from the top, and we have to stand on scaffolding and a man-lift cart to manually guide it into where it bolts down.

Next up is a mid-rotation picture, as the spacecraft is rotating so we can reach HMI while standing on the floor. It's pretty amazing that this whole thing is cantilevered out some 25 feet, especially with all the important stuff way out at the end. Sometimes it seems like it should just bend over and hit the floor. The wires you see running along the floor are ground straps, so whenever we're working on something we can clip a grounding wrist strap onto one to make sure we don't shock any electronics with static electricity.

Lastly, here it is having completed a 90 degree rotation. HMI is the one on the bottom left, not covered in bagging. The red items are covers that protect certain parts that we don't want to accidentally bump; they get removed before launch.

Anyways, I'll keep this post short as we've been working long hours out here and it's past my bedtime. Hope you enjoyed getting to see the inside of a NASA cleanroom without having to wear the annoyingly stifling bunny suit, booties, hood, gloves, wrist strap, and facemask. And in case you were wondering, that's the holiday beard on my face mostly hidden behind my face mask, not a giant mud smear. We'll see how long it lasts.

My 15 minutes

Look! I'm famous:

The article about our telescope is linked above. I thought this quote was pretty good:

The science is known as helioseismology, and it is no small task. "It's like deducing the interior structure of a piano by listening to it fall down a flight of stairs," Scherrer said.

In case you couldn't tell by the eyebrows, I'm the guy in the bunny suit on top. Actually, this picture was taken about a year ago before we were done building our telescope, but now that we have delivered it to Goddard (why I've been in DC a couple times recently) the press releases are coming out. Kinda funny - in that picture there's no screw anywhere near where I'm putting the wrench, the photographer just wanted to make it look like I was doing something and apparently that was a photogenic place to act like I was screwing something in. And he spent some 20 minutes getting the angle just right so the flash would glint off the telescope's front window like that.

Whew.

So I work for a small office (30) of a huge company (20,000). And we're probably not technically supposed to bring our dogs to work. But I do sometimes, because everyone knows and loves Banjo, and he's quiet, and sits under my desk and gives me licks when I need them. No problem, right?

Anyway, around 2:30 today, a frantic looking AA comes into my cube and informs me that the Chief Operating Officer (#2 in command) of the entire company is here at our office for the first time in history and he wants to meet everyone. And he's only two cubes away. She advises me to tell him that we're just "stopping by for a few minutes", but it is pretty obvious upon looking around that I'm set up for the day. Holy crap.

I start to sweat, shove Banjo under my desk and tell him to "stay". He does, like the good little guy he is. Moments later, COO arrives and starts chatting. More sweating, praying that dog will stay under the desk. I keep hoping he'll leave but he seems really intent on getting to know me. After about 5 minutes, Banjo decides enough is enough and that he wants to smell the fancy person yapping in my cubicle. Holy Crap.

Before I know it the fancy COO is rolling on the ground, playing with my dog and telling me about his beloved six pound maltese at home. Banjo is happily licking him. COO is a good person! Disaster averted! I still have a job! Huzzah!!

Swing Shifts

Hi everyone. Happy President's Day. I'm celebrating by working until midnight!

No really, now that our telescope is undergoing some testing that involves being inside a vacuum chamber with liquid nitrogen flowing all around it, 24-7 personel coverage is required to make sure someone is around in case something goes wrong (a lot can go wrong at -196 C).

Anyways, it's not so bad, as I have my mornings free to take a long walk with Banjo, run some errands during normal business hours, and have a relaxing morning. And it's only a few days at a time. But there's something a little strange about being at work at midnight. At least I don't have to do the graveyard shift (midnight to 8am). Ick.

Speaking of Banjo, our trip this past weekend to Tahoe for some skiing and snowshoeing and winter fun went really well! The dog is still not thrilled about car rides, but he just hunkers down and deals. We stayed in a nice rental house/cabin right near Donner Lake that Dustin found - with 7 of us it was pretty affordable to do, and way nicer than a hotel or doing a day trip. We went up with Dustin + Sarah, Adam + Ashley, and Alex. Not surprisingly, the male contingent was all Lockheed employees. Sigh.

Friday some of us skied at Alpine Meadows, and the others went XC skiing at Tahoe Donner, right near where we were staying. Kate went romping in the snow with Banjo, who loved it! The weather was sunny and warm, which was nice but made for some soft, slushy snow in places. I really like Alpine, though - especially getting to hike over to the back side and ski the open bowls that lead to the Sherwood lift.

Saturday we packed up and headed over to a trailhead off I-80 near Donner Pass and set off on a popular trail to hike Castle Peak. There's a good description of the snowshoe hike we did here or here (since we didn't take many ourselves). Despite the poor winter, there was a pretty good amount of snow up above 8000'. Our trail took us from about 8000-9000', going from the highway up towards a pass and then a quick spur up part of the steep ridge towards the peak before heading back down. Banjo was really good about the snow, and we were able to let him off leash for most of it. On the way back down he seemed to get tired and was dragging a little, but this was the longest hike we've done with him (~6 miles), and in snow, and steep at times, and at altitude (does that affect dogs the same?). Anyways, we were real glad to see that he not only could handle, but enjoyed such adventures.

Sunday we had a nice laid-back recovery day where Kate and I cooked a whole bunch of things - waffles (on our wedding present waffle maker), minestrone soup (with wedding present knife to chop veggies), "the best meatloaf recipe" (with wedding present mixing bowls), a big batch of pesto (with wedding present salad spinner), and morrocan chicken (with wedding pot to make cous cous). After a trip to the dog park we lounged and watched "The Dish," a movie about the Austrailan satellite dish that was used during the Apollo 11 moon landing. Thanks for the recommendation, Auntie! We liked it.

And that brings us to today, which brings me to the start of my swing shift in 6 minutes. Off I go...